The invention relates to an artificial breast for wearing in a brassiere or the like consisting of a soft-elastic dish-shaped plastic body which comprises a depression on the rear side of the prosthesis and which is symmetrical with respect to a symmetry plane passing through its tip arranged on the front side of the prosthesis and lying perpendicular to its base surface, has a main part comprising the tip and a lateral extension adjoining the main part and traversed by the symmetry plane and tapering to its end lying in the symmetry plane.
The form of such an artificial breast is known in practice as drop-shaped and is disclosed for example in DE-GM 6,926, 549. It is suitable for women who have had to undergo a less radical mastectomy in which apart from the mamma the lymph nodes have been operatively removed. When such a prosthesis is worn the lateral extension extends in the direction of the armpit and ensures a smooth transition between the prosthesis and the body of the wearer in the region of the armpit. The advantage of the drop-shaped prosthesis resides in that because of its symmetrical form it can be worn optionally on the left or right breast side. It has however the disadvantage that above the mamma it cannot compensate for operatively removed breast tissue and in this region is also unable to provide a smooth transition between the prosthesis surface and the body of the wearer.
Artificial breasts are also known which are likewise made symmetrical so they can be worn on the right or left and which have a lateral extension and an upper extension for providing a smooth transition between the prosthesis and the part of the body lying above the mamma. These artificial breasts have a heart shape, the upper extension and the lateral extension being of equal size. The lateral extension of the heart-shaped prosthesis is however substantially smaller than the lateral extension of the drop-shaped prosthesis because the upper extension must not exceed a predetermined length since otherwise it would project out of the brassiere. The size of the upper extension thus governs the size of the lateral extension which however is then often too small to compensate for operatively removed lymphatic node tissue.
Hitherto, the ideal form of an artificial breast was achievable only with an asymmetric breast prosthesis, the upper extension being smaller than the lateral extension. It is obvious that such a breast prosthesis can be worn only on one side of the body and for the other side of the body a differently formed prosthesis must be used. Compared with symmetrical artificial breasts, asymmetrical artificial breasts are fundamentally more expensive because they must be formed differently for the right and left body side and involve twice as much storage.
The problem underlying the invention resides in further developing the symmetrical artificial breast according to the preamble in such a manner that it provides both a smooth transition to the armpit region of the wearer with simultaneous complete compensation of removed lymphatic node tissue and in addition provides a smooth transition to the body part of the wearer lying above the mamma.